Bella Ciao
by Urchin of the Riding Stars
Summary: After being forced into the ink, he might as well pen his farewell. Goodbye, Beautiful, Goodbye! Song fic, tribute piece to Nimrod the Writer's Domination.
1. Chapter 1

Was looking for inspiration, and found this wistful battle song sung in Italy primarily during WWII, about invaders who overthrow the government and destroy the rebellious protestors.

Anyhoodle, Domination is Nimrod the Writer's. Definitely not mine. :) This piece was actually very tricky to write-much trickier than I thought it'd be, because I had a conversation with NTW that really made me re-examine Vlad's character. (Very insightful author!) This story got extended, (Mine have a funny way of doing that) and the song doesn't truly make much sense until you listen to Danny's account. Originally, the plan was just to make Danny an absolutely insane killing machine who's learned to associate pain with the heart of love, but that seemed juuusssttt a little too creepy for me at 1 in the morning. I've got no idea how this story is going to go down, folks, though I've put in foreshadowing of what I THINK could happen...of what psychology would probably dictate on a person after this much trauma. I also took a creative liberty with a scene in the last chapter in Danny's account, which you'll see in part 2, and is mentioned briefly in part 1.

Hope you all enjoy.

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><p>La vita è inferno ... O tu che in seno agli angeli!<p>

_"Life is a hell to those who are unhappy...Oh, my beloved, risen among the angels!"_

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><p><em>Prologue: Vlad, Part I of II<em>

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><p><em>"For every time you refuse a command, for every time you even <span>think<span> about escape, for every time you so much as make a grade lower than an A+, someone will die."_

People were fragile. People broke. And could not be put back together once again. It was the simplistic nature of things that even a child could understand. Daniel had certainly understood it, judging from the terror and horror in his eyes when Vlad had cheerfully sent Kwan to an early and bloody grave. All it had taken was a careless wave of his hand to send an electric bolt enough to clock a god's heart, and that boy's blood across the walls,and across the frozen younger half ghost's trembling hands.

But it had been so very lovingly done-had been one of the man's tenderer acts in years. An act of charity, if you would.

_Una mattina mi son svegliato  
>O bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao<br>Una mattina mi son svegliato  
>Eo ho trovato l'invasor<em>

_One morning I woke up  
>O bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao<br>One morning I woke up  
>And I found the invader<em>

Wait just a moment. The murder itself had been a sweet act?

Absolutely not, though in the long run, it was most likely done for the best. Countless of idiotic teenagers had protested the rise of Vlad's glorious new empire, thinking themselves immortal; invincible. Invariably, they had all met the same fate as that stupid, quivering old schoolmate of Danny's, albeit in droves. Qwan's death had meant as little to the man as squashing a rather irksome fly that had the misfortune of existing in your vicinity at the wrong place at the wrong time. The boy had simply been a disposable piece of flesh, one of millions littering this world-his world-like insects. If one-or thousands, for that matter-happened to disappear from the hive, so be it. It was his will. And from being bitterly denied all these years, he'd been granted the unparallel strength to enforce his will nationwide. He was better than a King; far, far better than any normal human. Would any mortal be able to concoct such a wonderful new world, where the foul and stupid were being expunged for the cowards they were? Petty dictators who had sent their own people to death camps had squealed and screamed for mercy like pathetic little piglets before they'd been executed in front of the people they'd loved to torment, in the name of Vlad's new rule.

To many of the poverty-stricken and the ignorant, Vlad was an angel. He had long since ceased caring about his image, but that was simply the way it was. He was a great, psychotic, and terrible one-but an angel nonetheless, who brought great cities down crumbling to burning pieces. Flaunt a bit of your power here and there, and suddenly, thousands and thousands of people turned to you after worshipping something or someone else for generations.

_O partigiano porta mi via  
>O bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao<br>O partigiano porta mi via  
>Che mi sento di morir<em>

_Oh partisan, carry me away,  
>O goodbye beauty, goodbye beauty, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye beauty<br>Oh partisan, carry me away,  
>For I feel I'm dying<em>

Again, that did not matter. He scorned them, and would occasionally send a metropolis in flames after receiving a nasty message from one of its occupants. Everyone had to know the price of disobedience, and, while not overtly bloodthirsty, knew no mercy. There was only one equal to him, one whom he could afford patience for, (Occasionally) for he was ignorant, and the tyrant could forgive him, as he could never so many others.

Which was one of the many, many reasons why Danny belonged to him, now, and would so for the rest of his life.

Danny had marvelous potential he was so ignorant of, and power that the man craved. Albeit, he already had enough power to make lunatic whims laws, but Daniel's was a rare beauty that the world had scarcely ever seen before. It belonged to one who understood the agony of having a beating heart, while having a body that was part corpse, with a remorseless sense of obsession burning in a silent breast. Raw obsession for something, be it murder or cardboard boxes, was what kept ghosts, in their shadowy, ectoplasmic forms existing, though they were but sad fragments of what had once been, fueled only by extreme emotion. Their spirits meant nothing. They couldn't mean anything.

But back to the act of love. You hadn't forgotten about Kwan too, had you?

Danny had so poorly spent his time as a half-ghost that he needed all the discipline in his catch-up work as Vlad could and would "Shove down my throat" as Danny had so eloquently put it. His irritating sense of 'nobility' had not yet allowed him to turn in one incorrect equation, and had grudgingly worked at improving his awful handwriting till his hand had turned purple and started cramping.

It was, at the very least, he appraisingly supposed, a start in the right direction. Daniel was growing exhausted under his mounting pile of schoolwork, but it did him well; he so scarcely argued anymore.

…..which, in lieu of the present circumstances, was perhaps not a wonderful thing, but all would be well soon enough. The faint, nagging sense of unease would at last stop tormenting him, and he could resume focusing on his newfound career and on Daniel once again: the two things in life that truly mattered.

He hadn't craved the former so badly as he had HIM. Which was precisely why he'd sent the world up in smoke after agreeing to rescue it from the disasteroid.

Because whatever was happening-or was beginning to happen-left the ruler feeling deeply uneasy now, though he'd tried to dismiss the thought. After all, what was happening was wonderful; everything he had desired for too long, and had deserved. He was picking Danny apart at the edges with a pickaxe to shape and refine his heart, his ghostly form, everything and anything about him until the gem glowed with splendid beauty, and shone as magnificently as Vlad believed it could.

He hadn't chipped that much away. The boy would be fine, and, like the rest of the world, would come out better because of it. He knew best.

And he knew, besting everyone in that pathetic little Resistance group who still could draw a gasping breath, that _he loved Daniel best._ The boy did not yet understand this, but someday, he would, and would adore Vlad's very shadow.

And perhaps one day, they could go into simple solitude, in peace somewhere off the coast of Greece, where Danny would cease to look so stricken and cease his annoying, recent habit of crying out at night for his parents. If he wanted so desperately to be held, as the way he clung to Vlad like a koala in bed suggested, he could learn by his own merits that his arms always had been open for him. Danny needn't fear the so-called 'darkness,' because Vlad had already forced him into the room with it, had the door deadlocked, and leaned up against it while it ravished his petrified, screaming form.

All in the name of helping Daniel become more powerful, of helping him understand his potential. Life was no fairy tale with a guaranteed 'happily ever after' unless you carved it out with precise detail and design, and had the means to deliver out your ends.

All this in the name of love.

_"I own you. You will belong to me for the rest of your life, so I suppose this is a type of gloating. You see, I can afford to sit here and wait, because I know I have all the time in the world to make you mine anyways."_

It had been all too satisfying, being able to carry out Danny's body from the burning wreckage of Fenton works, hearing shrill, albeit muffled, screams of terror from those still trapped on the inside. Whether Madeline lived or died now meant little to him; the passion that had fueled him for her sake had been little more than a means to restore broken dreams, and to destroy Jack from the inside out.

Twenty years ago, his heart had been consumed by jealousy and betrayal-and most terrifyingly of all, _anguish_-he'd been obsessed with thoughts both of Armageddon and tender affection. Maddie was the portrait of all of his lost youth, who had haunted him while he'd laid hideous and disfigured under bandages, writhing in agony. Sheer spite had kept him from dying a number of times, even while enduring the horrifying and bewildering experience of watching his own body disappear before his very eyes, and from insanity.

Once he'd reconciled himself with the terrible and glorious truth that Danny's face haunted his thoughts rather than dear Madeline's when Vlad woke up making love to a wall, the answer had at last drifted to him one evening so suddenly, and yet so lightly and sweetly, like a fragile snowflake.

He was glad the cloning experiments had ended in failure, after all. If it had been successful, it would have just left another mess for Vlad to clean up while he pursued his true prize, the one and only Daniel Fenton, whom he'd loved, whom had dared to betray his affections one too many times.

All he'd wanted, after he'd come out of the hospital horribly disfigured and had people flee from the very sight of his HUMAN form, yearned for, was love. He hadn't been a wicked person in college-he'd been an innocent enough young man hopelessly in love.

And the woman he'd loved married his best friend. Vlad had been burned to the point of dying with supernatural-akin agony, and been left behind, again, and again, and again. He'd built up his multi-billion dollar empire as a means to secure a better lifestyle and a better cover-up for Vlad Plasmius, who was then debuting in the Ghost Zone underworld.

And he believed, rather smugly, that it would woo Maddie to his side almost at once.

But even when he'd finally sprung up his brilliant plans into action, there had been the most unexpected setback, pardoning Madeline's offended rejections: the birth of another hybrid. Daniel. Again and again, Vlad had extended the hand of friendship, and, defiantly protecting his Father to the end, Daniel rejected Vlad's more than generous offers for the sake of a moronic oaf who was probably going to be the cause of his entire family's floating face-down in a puddle of ectoplasm someday.

He had sneered, and allowed the boy's jibs to slide off, but he'd been more tormented than ever.

How undesirable must you be if not even the teenage son of the man who ruined your life wants  
>nothing to do with you? Was he truly that much of a monster?<p>

When Jack was hailed as an angel, despite the fact that he'd left his best friend for dead?

He'd heard the child's screams and tearful pleadings for mercy beneath him, but did not listen; the thrill of joining his body with the other hybrid's, non-mutually or not, had been paramount, breathtakingly glorious, akin to a religious experience….if Vlad had believed in any power higher than his own in his new empire.

As he'd told Danny, dominating the world and setting a new order just wouldn't have been the same without him in Vlad's enormous bed.

_E se io muoio da partigiano  
>O bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao<br>E se io muoio da partigiano  
>Tu mi devi seppellir<em>

_And if I die as a partisan  
>O goodbye beauty, goodbye beauty, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye beauty<br>And if I die as a partisan  
>You have to bury me<em>

It had been years since he'd allowed himself to relive himself of testosterone, since every one-night stand left him disgusted with himself, regardless of how pretty or how shapely the giggling girl beside him in the morning was.

In fact, the greater their often superficial beauty, the worse it was. His desire for what was determinedly held from him for so many accursed years nearly broke his mind, brilliant though it was. It consumed him, tortured him, and became all the more intolerable once he'd finally realized his infatuation for the fiery young hybrid. While he still desperately wanted an heir to follow in his footsteps, he saw no reason why he couldn't have Daniel be both lover and companion. The boy, sickened as he'd been to admit it just weeks ago, was beautiful. Intoxicatingly innocent. And he was, unknowingly or not, was exquisitely intoxicating, and he'd all but gotten drunk on the teen that night. Danny's screams rung in his ears, but they'd only added to the high. Here at last, Vlad was reaping his revenge on Jack and Maddie both, and for Daniel, for being an insufferable pain in his side for too long, and for the unforgivable act of not returning his love.

Yet, of course.

But as though he'd been toasting a glass of champagne, he'd taken the boy, and his lust had scarcely been sated ever since. It was like a bear crawling out of hibernation, always famished, always starving.

But it was as he said: He ruled the world, now. Why shouldn't he reap the benefits?

Thankfully, however, he spent as much time as possible with Danny as he could, so there was always a decent bed/couch/desk/polished floor in reach. He'd be doing something so simple as reviewing paperwork while glancing up at Daniel, who was somewhere on his favorite sofa, (Vlad's as well, ironically enough) tip of his eraser between his lips while he scanned one of the latest treaties he was forcing himself to understand.

And, without another word, Vlad would find himself striding over to Danny, ripping his and the startled boy's clothes off intangibly, and proceed to make the boy holler out his name while always, always, shuddering the release that shamed him so.

It was a beautiful time to be Vlad.

The want to be wanted had never left him. And the desire to be needed was just, if not more so, potent. When Danny had frantically rejected his foursome attempt-a darkly seductive term of affection that he'd been positive would have made anyone else swoon-he'd felt the same sense of disbelief when he'd received the invitation. When Daniel rejected his offer again. That after weeks of being by Vlad's side, and by repeating this ritual again and again and again, he couldn't yet understand that Vlad did it out of must have been pure, raw affection, and an urge to pleasure someone.

And then, as always, came the fury.

Yes, he'd supposed gone too far, assaulting the boy with two clones while another held him down while all three tormented him. Danny's hysteric fit after that and the way he'd _looked_ with those large, terrified eyes and that revulsion and that horror and that great, consuming sadness when Vlad had turned him over in his embrace had chilled him slightly.

But, he stubbornly clung on to the belief that it had been Danny's fault for whimpering and moaning when he'd told him to under his touch. Perhaps the boy WAS a child, but there were certainly plenty his age who definitely were NOT virgins, and he'd been with Vlad enough times to know that Vlad would never try and cause him permanent damage.

Hadn't he?

He supposed he was going to have to take the boy again after lunch today and find out. While at first the ecstasy, satisfaction, and the wonderful, heavenly sense of unbridled domination led him to keep Danny marooned alone in his room, chained to the bed, he'd at last begun exercising some control, and slowing down for the boy's sake. At the very least, having a slower and more tender touch left the boy more charmingly confused and scared, and so much more likely to succumb to pleasure that he deemed an unthinkable sin.

But it was pleasing, having Danny submit to him in bed as he could never do in battle. He fought so hard to keep himself from making a sound that Vlad almost pitied him. Almost. But the teen had to learn eventually, and it was all the more brutal because it was a lesson that the child needed to learn a long time ago:

Life isn't fair. At last, it was 'unfair' in his favor-how quaint-but Danny was his to sculpt, and his to do with as he pleased. While he was as content in his position as a well-fed cat in front of the hearth, and his confidence in every single defense and foil-proof plan immaculate, as of late, he'd…..

He needed to stop thinking like this. Hopefully, an afternoon with Daniel training would distract him from useless, melancholy wonderings. He'd push Danny a little farther these next couple of weeks, and hopefully, by then he would have no choice but to relax in the rare evening the two had off together, and stop drowning in worry for his worthless family or self-pity. What else could it be, the way he looked out the window at his dead city?

The first time Danny had broken down with grief when Vlad had forced him to constrict himself with doubt, he'd wept with a broken heart in the man's arms for hours, while the man had only caressed and loved him unduly. He supposed he might tell the boy someday, but Danny had initially rejected his first confession of love that evening in the bath. It meant nothing to one who understood only a little now, but one day, the younger halfa would simply know. Vlad wouldn't have to tell him again, and face rejection (Though there would never again be any of that again in the future).

But the rare moments he did have when Danny unwillingly settled in his arms, or the three times that he'd hidden his face from the new, old world in Vlad's shoulder, were special. While the boy warranted a few electric shocks for his careless and inexcusable (And occasionally, just flippant) performance in training, and could usually only manage a few insults for normal conversation, those acts at the very least told Vlad that, once again, his plan was working flawlessly. A little more quickly than he had expected, but that had made it all the more perfect, he supposed. Danny had been forced to take hold of the grief Vlad had known for half of his life, and while it saddened Vlad slightly, it also gave him a savage sense of pleasure.

But that had given way immediately to a very different sort of answer when Danny, after he'd ventured two meek, weary questions, had petitioned that we turn in early. We. He was beginning to learn.

I had carried him off to bed-and back again when he'd become sick after a night terror, and a bout of hysterics before he'd run off to the bathroom, sick to his stomach.

If only he didn't have a test tomorrow, I'd give him a break from his studies….but what must be completed must be completed, and Danny knows lives DO hang in the balance in this equation. That's simply the way things are.

At the very least, gratifyingly enough, he allowed me to carry him back to bed once his spell had ended without protest. While I know his resolve will have hardened again by morning, all I need to do is keep hammering away, and let the chips fall where they may. Soon enough, Danny's will be crushed, his resolve unromantic and realistic, and his heart…

MINE.

As it always needed to be, as I had always needed it to be.

_Mi seppellire lassù in montagna  
>O bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao<br>Mi seppellire lassù in montagna  
>Sotto l'ombra di un bel fiore<em>

_But bury me up in the mountain._

_O goodbye beauty, goodbye beauty, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye beauty,  
>But bury me up in the mountain<br>Under the shadow of a beautiful flower_

But something is coming, and I don't like it. Much at all. Call it premonition, but there's change in the air. Mostly concerning my protégé's destiny, though I scoff at whatever outcome might be. Daniel looks sick something's a little wrong it's a little frightening will be fine.

_E le genti che passeranno  
>O bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao<br>E le genti che passeranno  
>Mi diranno: "Che bel fior!"<em>

_And the people who will pass by  
>O goodbye beauty, goodbye beauty, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye beauty,<br>And the people who will pass by  
>Will say to me: "what a beautiful flower!"<em>

I welcome any challenge to my throne. Come what may. I will not lose.

_È questo il fiore del partigiano  
>O bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao<br>È questo il fiore del partigiano  
>Morto per la libertà<em>

_This is the flower of the partisan  
>O bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao<br>This is the flower of the partisan  
>Who died for freedom<em>

End of Part I: Next, Part II-Danny


	2. Epilogue

Epilogue: Danny. The End….?

"If the soul is left in darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but the one who causes the darkness."  
>-Les Miserables<p>

~*~

The world was a complicated enough place when you were staggering through your adolescence. Becoming a half-ghost hadn't made things any easier.

Thankfully, the busy nature of his insane life had helped him develop an easy enough system that kept things healthily in check whenever he'd felt stressed (More so then usual) or overwhelmed (See above.). Even when Lancer had coldly handed Danny a test with a spikey, angry red D on its front, even when his parents had accused him of not being completely honest with them-(certainly not wrong, but hurtful)-he had to grudgingly hold onto the ideal that what he was doing was worthwhile.

People, for the most part, with the exception of the occasional nutjob, were good. People were people, and deserved to be saved. The act of saving was good.

He did the act daily. Therefore: Goodoing Good Things=Saving people was good=The act of saving people regularly probably designated you to be a good person + He did his best to save as many as he possibly could = Half dead or not, he could be a good person, disputing his parents' claims that the only good ghost was a dead one. As in, a perfectly destroyed one, or one safely strapped to an examining table. He'd also be able to avoid the fate of miserable Dan Phantom, who'd become cruelty incarnate out of the wrath Danny's ghost half had felt when he'd been discarded, and Plasmius' twenty year spree of...well, he didn't know, being a fruitloop and a colossal nutjob, he supposed.

But that future never came to be, and Danny had already known beforehand that he was supposed to use his abilities to be Amity Park's self-appointed deputy.

Though he'd never let Jazz know it, he sometimes perused through her large scrapbook of articles praising the ghost boy's noble acts, with words that sometimes made his ears burn red. While he didn't know if words like 'valiant' and 'chivalrous' suited him (whatever THEY meant) they were nice to hear, even if a large majority of ghost hunters in his beloved home town eagerly continued their hunt of their greatest defense with uncouth glee, and attempted to tear him out of the sky like a rare species of bird before clipping its wings and stuffing it into the darkness of a sack or cold lab.

But life had gone on.

Before it had ended.

Una mattina mi son svegliato  
>O bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao<br>Una mattina mi son svegliato  
>Eo ho trovato l'invasor<p>

One morning I woke up  
>O bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao<br>One morning I woke up  
>And I found the invader<p>

~*~

In the relatively quiet days he'd enjoyed before the world's holocaust, he'd stumbled in and out of ghost battles, struggled to complete his homework, (Thank God Sam had allowed him to copy her work occasionally out of grudging pity) and had spent warm afternoons laughing with his friends at their usual booth in the Nasty Burger, catching up at the usual point at the usual street-rain or shine.

What had they talked about, then? It's a little harder to remember, now. These memories don't really belong to him so much any longer, it seems, though he clutches at them just as hard as he clings to the monster who'd dragged him to its bed.

There are a bits and pieces still left: A few bruises he'd had to hide, a tricky test he'd just managed to get a B on, a particularly vicious battle with Vlad, who seemed dangerously cordial considering he'd flipped his lid after his desperate cloning scheme had ended in bitter failure just weeks ago.

Vlad. The bane of his existence. Still a deranged, snobbish, selfish, lying, condescending, horrible, horrible fruitloop. Cheesehead. Insane dude bent on wrecking Danny's life and winning his mother over as his new wife. Tucker didn't make things much better by pointing out that the phrase rhymed.

Such a pity! Vlad was a hybrid, and Danny would have been more than thrilled to accept his proposal of becoming his student when they first met…if only it didn't mean sending his Dad to certain doom and ruining his happy family life.

Aside from his friends, Danny's family was the most precious thing he had. While he could understand WHY someone would want to steal it away from him, it by no means quelled his satisfaction and relief whenever the billionaire's schemes crumbled to waste, or his resentment whenever the elder halfa would piledrive him directly into a building, leaving him carpeted with wounds that were increasingly difficult to keep under wraps. His parents were growing increasingly suspicious, and his weak excuses of tripping or tumbling down the stairs were growing thin in contrast to the violet bruises he had blossoming on his pale skin.

It was splendid that he'd had such wonderful friends as Sam and Tucker to commiserate with; they bemoaned their friend's troubles after a particularly painful skirmish left Danny limping back to them, or after the teen had only just managed by the skin of his teeth to rescue his father from a certain death trap.

He held onto the hope that one day, one day, he could live a normal life; maybe pursue his dreams at NASA. And maybe, just maybe, share an emerald ring and a shy secret that lay dormant in his heart with someone very special.

Sam. While girls like Paulina once stirred pleasant flutters inside him, he'd come to realize by now that whom they were interested in certainly wasn't him, but Phantom. Paulina had already proved on a number of occasions that she certainly wasn't above getting her hands filthy just to get to Amity Park's protector. She hardly cared about the mysterious, white-haired boy's personality so much as she did about his powers, and the novelty of hanging from his arm like an well-fed and trained hawk. No; Sam was lovely inside and out. Valerie too, had a flame inside of her that left Danny dazzled, but he hardly had the time or the sense to sort out his feelings. He hoped someday he would just…know.

And, as fate has a sickeningly cruel sense of humor, he at last believed he did, before a different heart had snagged his, with a chain link of love or by threat, he didn't really know.

After awhile, he'd stopped caring anyway, so bygones.

~*~

~*~

He'd been steeling himself to confess after the duo's wild ride alone with Wulf in the wilderness. But maybe just not yet: Exhausting though it was, he was much, much better at ghost fighting than he used to be. With his ridiculous and bizarre standards, life had settled into normality.

In those final days, if he had known, would he have done anything different?

'Yes,' argued the light before it had started to die from his eyes. 'Of course you would have. You would have tried to save the world yourself, dingbat, instead of allowing the world to be remade in a way far worse than instant annihilation for all. You would be free as a bird, with the girl you truly care about, whose face you practically forgot altogether before you saw her that night.'

The response isn't normally very kind, especially considering it has Vlad's voice.

And the voice from his 'better nature' usually stops talking and starts moaning when Vlad starts...IT up once again.

O partigiano porta mi via  
>O bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao<br>O partigiano porta mi via  
>Che mi sento di morir<p>

Oh partisan, carry me away,  
>O goodbye beauty, goodbye beauty, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye beauty<br>Oh partisan, carry me away,  
>For I feel I'm dying<p>

When the carnal pleasure where breath ceases and ends stops, the voice conveinently comes back to him, jeering at him:

You've doomed yourself, Danny Fenton, and now, the two of you are going to be lost forever. Not one person is going to mourn HIS loss other than YOU, ironically enough, like some sad, pathetic pigeon!

But the gray that had recently started flickering into his eyes-that occasionally lead into corridors that were much, much darker than the gray, where creatures with big red eyes and scary teeth leered at you; the ones that you might have seen as a child, the ones that you don't have to ask an adult to know whether or not they wish to eat you-

Quieted the angry catcalls and screams of disappointment with simple excuses, before the monsters carefully picked up Danny, and carried him away where the Light would not reach and torment him.

~*~*~

In his new golden cell, he pondered in the faint minutes he had to himself before succumbing to deep sleep, unable to cope, think, or feel anymore. Vlad was a genius in that respect, though it certainly didn't stop the shadows from lining his eyes, or the twisted, mutilated hands in his dreams from reaching out hungrily to him.

And all that while, before he'd wake up, sweating, unconsciously reaching for his captor's warm body in the darkness, he'd ask himself this:

Is this okay?

He knew he had to keep his wits, and wait for his rescue, as he knew any failed attempt would end up with someone's brains hitting the wall. Again. Because Vlad was incapable of love, regardless of how he held Danny or made his resolve waver into doubt.

He just needed comfort. He craved it.

E se io muoio da partigiano  
>O bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao<br>E se io muoio da partigiano  
>Tu mi devi seppellir<p>

And if I die as a partisan  
>O goodbye beauty, goodbye beauty, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye beauty<br>And if I die as a partisan  
>You have to bury me<p>

He'd known this the first time-the worst memory of his life. It still haunted him, though he wasn't sure why. Terror was probably going to become a six times a week thing.

Such a terrible, humiliating night! Even though it simply happened again and again and again and again and again, that first night was the lowest he'd EVER sunken in his lifetime, and the memory made him loathe himself.

His family had not burst in through the walls in the nick of time as he prayed they would, nor did his friends charge in with loaded spectral guns with their sights set on Danny's captor and assailant.

Despite years of effort to save lives, and keep people from danger, no rescuer nor brave knight had come to rescue HIM.

As if waking up in an enormous, unfamiliar place were not traumatizing enough; the surreal moment of realizing he was alone with an unfeeling murderer, being carried up that flight of stairs, the maddening, confusing feelings of apprehension and dread...

...and of course, the rape itself hadn't been that peachy, either. He'd scarcely done so much as TOUCHED himself before-and it was terrifying, because Vlad was a man and he was a guy, and he'd never entertained thoughts of being attracted to guys, because he wasn't anything other than hetero-ah, ah, he hadn't any CLUE what that just was, but ahhhh, aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh!

He'd wished it had hurt more, though his pride had definitely taken a few fatal swipes. But the fiery pleasure at the HANDS OF A SADISTIC MURDERER AND A FORTY YEAR OLD GUY left him mortified, but also pleading for more. He'd already affirmed that he'd never, ever allow himself to sink so far again, but it still stung.

Danny had been fervently wishing for death when Vlad had cheerfully gotten up the next morning, ruffled his hair and kissed him affectionately on the cheek as though Danny were his loving spouse. He'd wished every type of disease on every part of Vlad's body-several for which belonged to body parts that didn't exist. Vlad had only laughed when he'd told him so.

O bella, ciao! bella, ciao! bella, ciao, ciao, ciao!  
>Oh Goodbye beautiful, Goodbye beautiful, Goodbye beautiful! Bye! Bye!<p>

~*~

The days were both tremendously long and inhumanly short. Danny spent a great deal of time staring blankly at the walls above him, wishing that there were cracks in it to count.

What had he done?  
>What had he done?<p>

There were no distractions from his boredom, anxiety, and guilt-though Vlad had come around noon with a tray. Danny hadn't wanted to eat anything, (And let Vlad know it, of course,) though it had been over a day since he'd last eaten-and the man had made some choice threats, so Danny had been left suckling Vlad's fingertips-the tyrant had been pretty keen to keep his hands in Danny's mouth at all times. Retch.

Shortly after that, Vlad had lead him to the bath, and thus had proceeded the humiliating and entirely too-pleasurable second assualt in the warm, bubbly bath water, though his body still ached from last night's conquest.

~*~

After Vlad had cheerfully slaughtered Kwan at the shambles with a friendly little blackmail considering the quality of Danny's work, the teen had had to strenuously labor harder than he'd ever, ever had to in his 'schoolwork'-with concentration he wouldn't and couldn't have given even before he'd gotten ghost powers. Ghostwriter gave long and often boring lectures that left his concentration occasionally lapsing away, but if a ruler smacking him across the face wasn't enough to win back his attentions, the memory of Kwan's lifeless eyes staring blankly at nothing WAS.

It literally was the end of the world if he didn't pass his next stupid essay on Socrates, or that dumb sheet of math problems he desperately needed help from Vlad to complete. For someone. Somewhere. Vlad had picked a random teenager off the streets who'd just so happened to be Danny's schoolmate; and Dash's best friend had been all but hurtled to the gallows. Whose blood would be splattering the wall next? Some little kid's? A father's? His father's? Tucker's? Valerie's? Mom's? Sam's?

He didn't know.

And he most certainly didn't want to find out.

So Danny wrote an essay on whether or not Romeo and Juliet were genuinely in love with one another, (He'd said no, and that if Romeo and Juliet took place around now-before a lunatic took over-they probably would have ran away from home, gotten a Vegas wedding, and wound up in a trailer park someplace. Romeo would be in prison after getting into a public brawl, and Juliet would be whoring it up with Friar Laurence, or something.) and had a long and dull test on grammar that left him exhausted when he'd handed it back in. Ghostwriter had not really commented on his papers as of late, but if Vlad had left him a little free time, he would have been continually haunted. Had 23# REALLY been B? It was like he was some frantic nitpicker trying to get into Ivy League-the type of person he, Tuck, and Sam had laughed at, once upon a time.

Mi seppellire lassù in montagna  
>O bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao<br>Mi seppellire lassù in montagna  
>Sotto l'ombra di un bel fiore<p>

But bury me up in the mountain.  
>O goodbye beauty, goodbye beauty, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye beauty,<br>But bury me up in the mountain  
>Under the shadow of a beautiful flower<p>

But it didn't matter, regardless. He'd fought for the world's freedom from Pariah Dark, though it had nearly killed him. For two years, he'd ran himself into the ground trying to rescue people while trying to obtain some measure of control over his alive, dead, and ever-unpredictable and shaky spectral body. He hadn't opted to use his powers to steal ridiculous amounts of cash, harm others, or overshadow people to do horrible things in his name. Practically any other child would be drooling at his potential, and with it, turned half the country into a frenzied, overturned beehive state of chaos in a matter of days.  
>He'd captured criminals who stole handbags from old ladies and held up convenience stores. He'd rescued cats from trees. Heck, he even made a point to not litter.<br>And he'd been left listening to the Ghostwriter's jeers ringing in his mind right before Vlad seized him by the wrist, pushed him into the ground, and slammed the living daylights out of him.

~*~

He was Danny Fenton. The appropriate label? Good. He tried to do the right thing for the right reasons, until he wasn't needed anymore, and could serenely pursue his dreams…even if Amity seemed to fall apart at the seams the moment he'd turned his back.

Good people worked harder then he did at his position, though he always felt so indignant when Vlad and Ghostwriter would coolly tell him when he did better then his best that it 'would do.'

But he was still good, right? Vlad was a horrible person, but at least he wasn't all bad as to deny him a hug, even if he never retur-

One still determined, desperate side of him cried out:

What are you thinking? What Vlad has done is beyond evil; he's essentially playing God and wiping out millions of innocent people. He's a murderer! Murderer! Kidnapper! Rapist! For God's sake, don't forget what he's done to you; what he STILL does to you-

But then, a cold, somewhat amused voice broke into his mind:

'Really? Don't forget? Do you WANT to remember that night, the way you twisted under his hands, the way you moaned for more like a whore, practically threw yourself at him?' It threatened, sneering. 'And considering the way you normally react when the man the same age as your parents reaches for you...

Yep-he was glad he was busy.

~*~

There was no closure, no Sam to call out to when nightmares loomed in his vision, and he stood in a sea of beseeching corpses, with blood on their welcoming, outstretched hands-upon his own. Desperate, inane, and certainly mad laughter rang in his ears that he was terrified beyond relief might be coming from his own mouth. No-there was only the warm body inches away to clutch at like a drowning man at straws or a little koala. Danny had never truly been so alone in his life.

Soon enough, the gray became easier to accept. It just grew darker; more condensed over time. Fighting whatever means to an end that Vlad had meant darkness; acceptance meant darkness.  
>He despaired. And he also laughed, for the first time in weeks.<p>

~*~

The night his faith had truly been shaken, he'd lay curled up in his nemesis' arms like a frightened cat, insides hollow, the tendrils surrounding his heart aching. While Vlad's long, pale fingertips absentmindedly and soothingly brushed down his back, they left gooseflesh in their wake.  
>Here was a man who'd claimed all he'd ever wanted was to be loved, and yet he cheerfully sent the world ablaze, ignoring the cries of the walking dead writhing in ectoplasmic flames, while Danny cowered in a comforting shadow.<p>

How was it that a heartless villain was able to be a link to sanity?

Feeling ill, Danny had reluctantly slid his way free from Vlad's sleeping form, sliding out of the bed, grateful that Vlad hadn't chained him to the bedpost for a few days, now.

On his way to the bathroom, he didn't notice a pair of dark cobalt eyes open, and eye him dogmatically as Danny retreated, soft gait turning into a run as he realized that he was about to hurl.

~*~

Danny pressed his burning face to the cool marble surrounding the sink for a moment, taking several deep breaths as he did so, willing for the floor to stop spinning under his feet. He definitely didn't want to get sick again.  
>After a moment, when he'd felt he'd recollected himself enough, he dazedly drew himself up, stars still twinkling in his vision as he switched the gold taps on, and splashed cold water all over himself, shuddering.<br>When he at last looked up with lidded eyes at the lavish looking glass before him, his heart leapt into his throat, effectively stifling the scream of terror he'd been about to shriek.  
>His reflection copied him, so much like him, but certainly NOT him-not, not, not, NOT!<br>It was a revenant of himself-in ghost form. His ghostly jumpsuit was somewhat altered, black and white color palette more akin to Plasmius' own uniform. The creature staring at him was thinner, more pallid, with even darker rings under the mad green orbs then his own, and was absolutely beaming, overflowing with happiness.  
>Horrified Danny staggered a step back, his limbs shivering like jelly, his mind blank with incomprehension as the ghost, instead of copying him this time, began swimming through the mirror, eyes flashing from sea-glass green to a hot yellow, his dark fingertips becoming sharp, and his smile more broad-to a sickening extent, where it appeared he was grimacing in pain. His tail was curled, distorted, and Danny could faintly hear, out from the blood rushing in his ears, a soft laughing sound that might have been a child's.<br>So innocent, so naïve and sweet.  
>This time, Danny backed up against the door as the creature cheerfully broke through the glass, and loomed into the chamber, laughing, laughing, laughing his head off as though the world were all but a colossal joke.<br>Somewhere, he could faintly make out weeping and wailing. But who was that-Vlad? Himself? Mom? Sam?  
>As Danny's hand started fumbling for the crystal doorknob behind him, shaking with fright, the ghost loomed at him-and suddenly, disappeared. The laughing didn't leave, nor did the frantic and desperate sobbing, or the fear.<br>Suddenly, Danny felt sharp fingertips digging into the back of his shoulders. He shouted, and twisted, trying to fling whomever had tackled him off-but there was no one to be seen. As he crashed to the tiled ground, his head was painfully twisted so that he was again facing the colossal mirror.  
>There was the reflection of himself, now flanked by the giggling ghost of himself, this time accompanied by a sad-faced duplicate of Danny Fenton on the right, blue eyes dull and mournful.<br>His ghost form started giggling wildly again, his eye twitching sporadically as he did so. He certainly didn't look sane. Still chuckling, he threw his arms around the two Danny Fentons, one petrified, one morose-as though the three were close bosom buddies.  
>The weary looking Danny turned to look at the real Danny as the ghost wrapped his arms around the illusion's neck. Far from looking frightened, he just looked like a shadow, frail, paper-thin-a mere memento of ideas and ideals that had once motivated the body. He was covered in numerous gashes, and Danny Phantom's hands and front were shining with blood and ectoplasm-some of which looked like his own.<br>"If you don't want to lose everything," the boy murmured quietly, barely audible over the Phantom-esque version of himself, "You'll keep me. You know what the right thing to do is, Danny-you just have to be patient. Someone will come for you…."  
>Danny scrabbled backwards on the floor, but could not move. An arm was still flung around his shoulders, though he saw none of it.<br>Now looking desperate, the other Danny cried out, admonishing the scared boy:  
>"Eventually, I'm positive we'll be rescued!" he cried, wincing alongside Danny when the boy felt a stab of sorrow deep down. "Please….please, Danny, don't let go! People are still counting on you! Hate what he's doing to you, remember that he's raped you, kidnapped you, and you can live without affection if you just work a little harder! God, you're pathetic!"<br>To his surprise, in spite of himself, Danny felt a swelling of indignation and anger inside him. HE was the pathetic one? Didn't the fact that he HAD lost his innocence-and did on a daily basis-and was worked like all day like a tired horse to the ground until he all but fell unconscious into Vlad's arms every night mean that he DESERVED a hug every now and again, even if it was from Vlad?  
>If you do, I'll die, and you'll die, and then, once your rescue comes, will all-"<br>But he spoke no more; the smiling Danny Phantom struck him in the neck with an ectoplasmic bolt, and the boy fell, eyes rolling backwards before toppling out of sight.  
>Eyes still full of bloodlust, though perfectly serene, the mirroid phantom's smile widened so much so that it appeared ready to fall off.<p>

"I know you can feel me. Nightfall's coming soon. Won't that be nice? Everything will all make sense then, Danny. I promise."  
>And, without another word, the ghost offered him a bloody heart, humming merrily while Danny screamed.<p>

E le genti che passeranno  
>O bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao<br>E le genti che passeranno  
>Mi diranno: "Che bel fior!"<p>

And the people who will pass by  
>O goodbye beauty, goodbye beauty, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye beauty,<br>And the people who will pass by  
>Will say to me: "what a beautiful flower!"<p>

~*~

He wasn't sure when Vlad had burst in, or when the hand had clapped over his mouth to make him stop yelling. He remembered being sick, and Vlad's hands around his stomach.

"N-No," Danny murmured fearfully, again vomiting into the toilet, humiliated. With any luck, Vlad would be disgusted enough to simply leave him alone.  
>Or maybe that was precisely what he didn't want.<br>Had all he'd ever been good for was protection against invading ghosts? Was that why no one had come to rescue him? Did anyone even like him, for that matter, or want him?  
>His desperate stream of thoughts was abruptly cut off when Vlad's cool hands moved to the back of Danny's neck, stroking the sweaty skin as Danny was sick again and again and again.<br>"Daniel. Shh, Shhhhhhhh," the man murmured, still stroking the small of the trembling teen's back.  
>"Just let it all out-you'll be fine, you'll be fine."<br>Danny choked on a sob, nearly gagged, but managed to keep it down this time, and started gulping for air again, his throat burning, his eyes stinging, and his stomach in knots.  
>No. His family and friends did love him. They would be back for him.<br>Some day.  
>Some way.<br>Definitely.  
>Mayb-no, no, he couldn't allow himself to think like that. Vlad's ridiculous theories about looking after one's self were all well and good, but did that reasoning allow you to crush the lives and freedom of millions of people? If 'looking after yourself' was so innocent, then why all the death?<br>No. It was evil. Maniacally, unfairly, potently evil, hiding behind a dumb masquerade to justify it all, the way evilness always did.

A hand cupped his cheek, and Danny's face burned as Vlad held him for awhile, confirmed that he was not about to be sick again, and moved him gently away to the sink, wondering faintly why the young halfa seemed so intent on not looking at the mirror. But after Danny's face was washed, his mouth rinsed, and the hybrid gulped down some water, Vlad rose, with Danny in his arms, and left the bathroom. The teen did not object as he normally did when the elder scooped him up like a doll, and settled them both underneath the colossal bedsheets.

What was better and worse was Vlad again tucking Danny's head under his chin, not seeming to care that the boy could have a potentially-catching stomach virus, and resumed caressing his midnight tufts of spiky hair in the dark, moving his lips to Danny's ear to whisper something gentle. The boy shook, faltered, colored, and went pale again all in a few heartbeats, and unconsciously moved closer to the wicked man's chest, mentally savoring the slight, tingling sensation that came with being held.

The image of the horribly grinning ghost flickered in Danny's eyes again, and he shut them tightly, burying his face in Vlad's breast, and biting the inside of his cheek hard so as not to make the sounds he could hear inside of him.  
>He might as well have been hugging a bugaboo (Or whatever the hell those monsters Ghostwriter had been talking about in that lecture in Greek mythology were called) but beggars can't be choosers, and right now, he was desperate to take what he could get.<p>

Of course Vlad didn't love him.  
>Did he?<br>Not a chance.  
>Love didn't warrant hurting the people you supposedly cared for.<br>But in the few weeks he'd been forced to hang around Vlad, he HAD gotten stronger physically, and while Vlad was a brutal teacher, okay, maybe he had gotten a little more proficient at his school work and ghost powers, (Same principle as handing a kid a gun and throwing him in a room full of murderous cannibals) but he'd made Hitler and Stalin look like creampuffs in comparison while doing it.  
>He insisted that the world was a corrupt cesspool, and that while he couldn't have possibly have cared less, the remaining people alive were going to come out better having their lives ruled by fear and submission.<p>

But why did he need to take him, too?

Was his reasoning so corrupt that the genius HAD kidnapped him out of blind affection?

Whatever. He wasn't going to think about it anymore. He just wanted some sleep. Tomorrow, the two would go back to the bathroom and shower, and Danny would look away while Vlad would eye his body, and occasionally, mount him if they'd gotten up especially early.

O partigiano porta mi via  
>O bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao<br>O partigiano porta mi via  
>Che mi sento di morir<p>

Oh partisan, carry me away,  
>O goodbye beauty, goodbye beauty, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye beauty<br>Oh partisan, carry me away,  
>For I feel I'm dying.<p>

Che mi sento di morir.  
>Che mi sento di morir.<br>Che mi sento di morir, che mi sento di morir, che mi sento di morir.

Rushed breakfast, boring and exhausting classes, strenuous work outs, more sneering and smacks upside the head in ghostly training, papers to read over, books to read, and pass out on the sofa in Vlad's study, or being dragged to bed for some more fun nightly trauma, if the man didn't throw him on a coffee table again, and proceed to strip him of his dignity…and his clothes.

And another new question that bothered him: Did Vlad genuinely love him? It couldn't make much of a difference-he would never love the man. Ever. He couldn't let himself.

Besides, there were things worse then rape to him, now. Having his ground taken away from him-his morals, his beliefs tested-was much, much more frightening.

Mama, lei mi ha lasciato per l'invasore  
>Papa, lei ha anche lasciato<br>i fiori bianchi sono in crescita  
>e che mi sento morire presto.<p>

Mama, you left me to the invader  
>Papa, you also left<br>The white flowers are growing  
>And I feel I must die soon.<p>

It was going to become a fight for reality and his ideal.

~*~

* * *

><p>I'm getting so tired. Not so much physically so, but it's only with remembering that I have an obligation to stay alive; to get out of here healthy and sane for the efforts to rebuild the world-that I haven't turned my face to the wall and tried to off myself when Vlad wasn't looking. There still had to be life to be lived; even if things would never exactly be the same again, there was still my family. Tucker. Survivors from Casper High. Sam.<br>But where are they?  
>Are they even alive?<br>What did I do wrong to deserve this?  
>Is this all my fault? That because I turned him away, the world got fried, Qwan died, and I'm alone here?<br>Am I a bad person?  
>'Normalcy' around here is good; while Vlad's annoying presence makes me feel like I'm drowning sometimes, it's far worse when I'm alone. I can banter as much as I want to, and believe myself.<br>Mostly.  
>Once the hot shower water starts pouring around us, and, from behind me, Vlad teasingly starts rubbing my shoulders-probably because I'm standing 'like a rigid, stalwart solider' or whatever the hell it is that he calls me. I feel myself freeze up, and we're both expecting that I'm going to swat at his hands. I do it halfheartedly, just for appearance's sakes, but as I turn around again, I'm so, so thankful the shower is making water trickle normally around my face.<br>I can faintly hear the twisted version of me laughing. But who the heck's heart was that?

È questo il fiore del partigiano  
>O bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao<br>È questo il fiore del partigiano  
>Morto per la libertà<p>

This is the flower of the partisan  
>O bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao<br>This is the flower of the partisan  
>Who died for freedom<p> 


End file.
